


Goner

by hulksmashmouth



Series: Have Patience with Your Local Teens, They're Going Through a Lot [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, F/M, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Possession, buckle up kids momma's going DARK, not affiliated with the venom movie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 03:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16400279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulksmashmouth/pseuds/hulksmashmouth
Summary: In the aftermath of The Leftovers, Peter believes the stealth suit he found in his closet is the last gift Mister Stark ever gave him. That's his first mistake.When putting on the suit has lethal consequences, he has to learn what it takes both to protect those he loves and save the world at the same time.





	1. Peter

**Author's Note:**

> and heeeeeeere we go! I have no idea when I'll have time to update this AND the Ten Things AU, with work as busy as it is, but I promise neither one is ever ever going to be abandoned, and if anyone ever has questions you can reach me at http://hulksmashmouth.tumblr.com

“So, all I’m saying is—oh my _god_ , it’s _cold!_ —all I’m saying is that Spider-Man has a platform,” Peter says, neck disappearing into his chest as he hunches his shoulders against the blast of cold air outside the library. The streets are weirdly empty for an unseasonably warm (though still _freaking cold)_ November afternoon, but he isn’t going to complain, since that means he can keep talking about other stuff. “You always say that if someone has a platform they should use it to advocate for good. So I don’t see why—”

“So now you think you’re a celebrity?” retorts MJ, merciless as ever even while tucking herself under his arm. Ever since his, like, _transformation_ or whatever, he runs really hot. Benefit for those around him, but it always makes him feel colder.

Shouldering him from the other side, Ned almost skids on a patch of ice right into a garbage can. “Hey, he’s probably more popular than, like, the Kardashians at this point.” Sweet, sweet Ned, the best friend Peter ever had, but also not great at gauging levels of celebrity. Then again, Peter doesn’t know anything about the Kardashians, but he knows a lot about himself. Before MJ can extend her fangs he not-so-smoothly interjects.

“I just don’t see why you think I shouldn’t wear the suit to the march,” he shrugs.

“It’s _distracting_.”

“It shows that Spider-Man, a _minor_ public figure, _cares_ ,” Peter argues back.

“He’s a man of the people,” Ned slips in, shoving his hand in Peter’s coat pocket to steal a stick of gum from the pack he’s started carrying around in case MJ wants to make out. Her moods are about as turbulent and unpredictable as a grizzly bear’s since the snap and subsequent reality convergence, and he likes to be prepared at a moment’s notice. “If Spider-Man stands with the people at the march, that means he hasn’t been bought out by the First Order government agenda.”

MJ rolls her eyes, sticking her hand in a very different one of Peter’s pockets. He blushes, but Ned luckily doesn’t notice since all of their faces are pink from the chill anyway. “Anyone can Google which superheroes signed the Accords, that’s not a secret,” she says. “If _Peter Parker_ goes to the march, it’s another body in the greater movement. If _Spider-Man_ goes, it’s a cheap publicity stunt and no one takes the march seriously. It’s like if Joss Whedon showed up at a women’s rally, it’s _gauche_ and people won’t believe you’re there for anything other than your image.”

“ _Okay_ , but,” Peter huffs, stopping and thus, by merit of their tangled arms, stopping MJ too, and looks at her. He’s grown another inch since coming back from the Soul Realm; he’s almost her height now and it’s really weirding all of them out. “What if Spider-Man wants to be there to protect the protesters? That guy who drove into the crowd last year, someone _died_ , MJ, and if Spider-Man being there could stop that happening…”

She purses her lips, only twitching when Ned slides on another frozen puddle and collides with a fire hydrant. “You okay, Ned?” she calls first, making sure he makes a sound in the affirmative before addressing Peter again. “I’ll think about it. I’d still prefer if my _boyfriend_ came, but…I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have some muscle on our side.”

Smiling, he leans forward to kiss her forehead, still enjoying the novelty of being able to do so without arching onto his toes (even if it _is_ because she inclines her head toward him to help). “Okay,” he agrees. “You’re the protest expert, or, _protexpert_ , if you will, so I’ll defer to your judgment.” Then he tenses a little, knowing exactly what’s coming and already giddy because _he knows her_.

MJ makes the beloved, irritated, _psh!_ noise through her teeth and he laughs, disentangling their arms to check on Ned on the sidewalk. Does she know his little quirks too? Even he doesn’t think he entirely knows himself, but he wouldn’t mind at all if MJ knew him.

“So I was thinking about that suit Tony left you,” Ned announces before he’s even fully on his feet again. “I know you didn’t want to mess with it, but I really think that maybe we should consider opening it up to see if there’s any hardware that can be salvaged, you know, for a suit that’s less creepy? No offense, but…”

A car speeds past, driving through a puddle only half-encrusted with ice; the unfrozen half splashes against their legs and they collectively shriek in freezing indignation. MJ’s holler of _What the fuck, man?!_ goes entirely unnoticed by their assailant as they speed around the corner and vanish, but Peter and Ned each got a fragment of the plates. They groan in agony as one unit.

Flash. The jerk’s been acting out lately but no one’s quite figured it out. No one really wants to, actually, because. Well. He’s _Flash_. He’s awful enough on a good day, let alone a shitty one.

“I still stand by that he’s secretly in love with MJ,” Ned announces, unprompted.

MJ makes a gagging noise.

“That definitely explains why he’s been calling _me_ Penis Parker since sixth grade.”

“Well, I dunno, it’s a theory!”

Around and around they go, all the way to the subway station, four stops on the train, and the rest of the walk to Peter’s apartment. The best thing about having two best friends—one of whom is, admittedly, also his girlfriend, but she was his friend first—is that they never run out of things to talk about. Or give each other shit about, either. Even when they fight they aren’t really _fighting_ , just coming up with great new hot takes on one another’s opinions at all times.

And, because it’s senior year and they are very responsible young people, they also have started making dinner a few nights a week, so May doesn’t have to worry about buying all three of them dinner when her new culinary foray inevitably backfires. Peter loves her more than anyone else in the world, and she’s really good at making things she already knows how to make, but the problem is she’s always trying new stuff from her cooking classes to impress people and instead ends up with date loaf that tastes like a burnt shoe that Peter _has_ to eat because a) he loves her, and b) he’s _hungry_.

So they stop at the market on the corner and pick up a huge bag of pre-mixed and -cut salad, three boxes of spaghetti noodles, three huge cans of marinara sauce, and a loaf of garlic bread practically the length of MJ’s freakishly long legs, and head up to the apartment to unload books and groceries.

“Ned, you start proofreading,” MJ says, immediately taking charge with her highly superior organized mind. “You can use my computer, it’s in my bag. Peter, handle the sauce and bread? I got the pasta.”

“So, you’re gonna watch water boil,” Ned deadpans as he digs MJ’s laptop from her bag.

Already pulling a book down from its hiding space on top of the refrigerator, she doesn’t even bother to argue. "Yup," she grins, flipping it open to her marked place and leaning against the wall to enjoy. “I’ve been writing college application essays for two weeks straight; now that we’re in the editing stage I can get back to the good stuff.”

They’re pretty good at dividing up the labor to make this task less daunting, actually. Peter’s the best at throwing together a coherent first draft on the fly, MJ’s the best at revising every sentence to make the entire work both streamlined and beautiful, and Ned’s the best at picking out the littlest mistakes even after six rounds of revision and editing. By their powers combined, they make a formidable team against any college application committee.

MJ decided at twelve that she’s going to Harvard, and Peter and Ned basically made a blood oath to room together at MIT, and all of their grades and extracurriculars are impeccable, so all it’s going to take to get there is three goddamn banging application essays.

“I mean, it’d help if we all had rich parents to donate a new campus library, too,” MJ likes to add whenever they go over strategy and start getting too cocky about their odds. Thousands on thousands of desperate teenagers apply to those same colleges every year, and some of them might just be a better candidate despite the very best efforts. It’s a very real possibility, but Peter never did do well with foresight.

“How many more revisions do you think it needs?” Peter asks, peering over Ned’s shoulder with the wrapped garlic bread in one hand. Ned’s on Facebook, his one true weakness. Peter bonks him with the bread and he guiltily opens up the essays.

“Yours is perfect, MJ, we should stop torturing ourselves and just submit it tonight,” he announces, at which MJ beams. “Mine is ready after one more comb-through, I think, but Peter, yours needs, like, mmmmmaaybe two more? You were gone a lot last week.”

Peter fidgets from foot to foot, feeling the familiar twist of guilt in his gut when real life is complicated by his after-school superheroing. “There was a string of house robberies,” he starts to explain, lamely. “I thought it was weird they kept getting away even when I thought I caught them, so—”

“We know,” says MJ without resurfacing from the depths of her book. She doesn’t sound very understanding, though, and there’s a deep line between her brows. “You tailed them as long as you could, and then started watching houses you thought they might hit next. When they broke in you webbed all the doors and windows and finally got them by scaring them out so they’d stick to the webs. They had a Mouse Hole and were using it to escape in the sewers, which explains why all the robbed houses stank like actual shit.” She closed her book and gives him a flat, level look that betrays nothing. His stomach twists again. “We were listening in and editing at the same time.”

He nods, both relieved and still guilty as hell, because he wants to defy the laws of reality and be here while at the same time get out there and protect people. He can’t divide himself in two, obviously, but that doesn’t make it suck any less when reality smacks him in the face.

“Okay, so, two more revisions,” he agrees, an olive branch extended that Ned and MJ both accept without fuss. “We’ll do them tonight. Mine, one last check on MJ's, then Ned’s, then mine again. We’ll be done by midnight.”

“As long as Ned doesn’t keep changing how many _spaces_ he’s going to put after his periods,” warns MJ.

Ned makes a wordless noise of indignation. “There’s _merit_ to double-spacing! Old people _love_ double-spacing, it’s how they did it as youths! They’ll look at my essay and think, wow, this guy really knows how to write a paper, not like those other ingrate Gen Z kids who don’t respect the integrity of the double-space, give him a scholarship!”

“That’s a little little overly optimistic,” Peter gently tells him, but Ned just shakes his head.

“You’ll both think twice when I have a full-ride to MIT. And don’t do that thing where you-!”

Peter and MJ share a look and affectionately roll their eyes.

Ned groans like they’ve mortally wounded him. The water gurgles to a boil and MJ turns away to dump in the noodles. Peter pats her thigh to get her to move over so he can put the bread in the oven. Her hand brushes his bicep with gentle intent. Warmth blooms in the pit of his stomach, rising up to his face in a vivid blush.

Ten minutes later, as MJ is dumping their irresponsible volume of pasta into a colander, the door opens with perfect timing to admit Aunt May. As ever, she gasps I’m surprised relief: “You guys made dinner? Oh, I _knew_ I kept you all around for a reason!” And they dutifully laugh, like they always do. It’s a comfortable routine and one that Peter isn’t really looking forward to interrupting when he leaves for college. He knows it’s bound to happen eventually, but he just loves May and doesn’t want to leave her on her own. Maybe she would move to Boston? But no, he couldn’t ask that of her either. It wouldn’t be fair to make her leave the place she lived with Uncle Ben for more than 20 years.

For now, they settle down to a huge meal together around the coffee table (Peter broke the dining room table a week ago after accidentally body slamming it, trying to avoid MJ’s nimble tickling fingers. May insists this will keep them closer as a family anyway) and forget about school for at least a few minutes. No phones or application essay talk at the table.

Still, it doesn’t stop Peter from _thinking_ about his between bursts of chatter. As he steadfastly devours a plate of spaghetti the size of a small developing nation, he feels a stab of regret and guilt for his choice of essay topic. Everyone knows that he’s a Stark Industries intern with basically the keys to the castle at his disposal, that Tony named Peter in his will and left him a significant portion of Stark Industry shares, just short of a majority share, actually. But he still feels cheap writing about Mister Stark as his hero and role model. Like he’s taking advantage, somehow. There’s another two weeks before the applications are due, maybe he could...

No. God, no, he can’t just decide to _rewrite_ his essay with two revisions of, like, a thousand left until it’s perfect. MJ would _actually_ murder him, and he wouldn’t even get it done in time because of his patrol schedule, and he can’t, he just can’t give up patrolling when people might need him. He can't let everyone down again.

The hairs on the backs of his neck and arms rose pin-straight, gut swooping, a feeling of fundamental wrongness buzzing behind his eyes. _Mister Stark, I don’t feel so good_...

“...to Parker, _yo_ , Earth to Peter.”

He looks up and knows his eyes are too wide, hands shaking too hard, to just be thinking about spaghetti. May’s mouth is pressed into a thin line. Ned is trying very hard not to look at him. On the couch beside him, MJ’s hand is pressed to her stomach; sometimes it makes her sick to think about the snap.

That they all know him well enough to react without him even saying what’s on his mind is both humbling and very, very embarrassing.

“Sorry,” he mutters, searching for something, anything, else to say to make them think about a topic that isn’t death by disintegration and losing everyone important in your life. “...pass the salad?”

MJ stands up, abrupt and looking like she hadn’t meant to judging by the fork still gripped in her fingers. For a second he thinks maybe she’s going to stab him with it. Just for a second. Then she says, “I’m all done. Meet you guys in Peter’s room to edit,” and takes her half-finished plate to the kitchen. His skin burns with guilt, but he doesn’t go after her. He knows now that MJ’s tough exterior is because she’s painfully embarrassed by her own feelings about 98% of the time, and shoving them in her face by trying to be a considerate boyfriend will only make her more defensive and closed-off.

After a prolonged lull in which they can all hear MJ shifting around in his bedroom, Ned clears his throat and turns to May. “How are the cooking classes going?” he politely asks.

With a gasp of untamable excitement, May’s mood immediately shifts into a long talk about how much she _loves_ the Tibetan cuisine course she’s taking at the Adult Education Center, and how she really thinks they’re going to let her try using the stove again as soon as the smoke damage is repaired. Peter doesn’t stop being amazed at the amount of energy she has; she works all day and then once a week goes to learn _some goddamn control over my life by controlling my frigging diet!_ in her words. She hasn’t quite reached the diet part yet, but Peter has faith they’ll be eating delicious Tibetan food in no time. And after that, probably Portuguese or Russian.

None of them eats much tonight, though. They put on a good performance of pushing salad around, twirling and untwirling noodles, picking apart bread with buttery fingers. Then the leftovers are enclosed in the glassware storage MJ got him for his birthday because she is a very practical person, and it’s off to Peter’s room to make revisions on their essays. May parks herself on the couch with her favorite sexy period drama queued up on Netflix and waves them off.

There’s a vague girlfriend-shaped lump under the covers on Peter’s bed where MJ is apparently snoozing; Ned helpfully sits on her to illicit a high-pitched shriek of protest.

“I hate you,” she says as she unearths from the mound of blankets, pointing first at Ned and then at Peter. “What the hell happened to wanting to protect your girlfriend, loser?”

Peter snorts, dropping into his swiveling desk chair. “Please, you could take Ned, easy.”

“Hey! Don’t diss the guy in the chair!”

He makes a face, gesturing to the fact that he, in fact, is the guy currently occupying said chair. MJ laughs, an ugly, easy sound that makes his heart soar as Ned sputters about _technicalities_ and starting a union for the fair treatment of superhero sidekicks.

It takes half an hour for them to settle down. They revise Peter’s essay; MJ shows him where there should be more personality and where he should draw back a little. Ned finds an unnecessary apostrophe halfway down the second page. He takes in their wisdom and makes the appropriate changes in his own words, so no one can argue that he didn’t write the essay himself.

After Peter’s first revision is over with, MJ does one more read-aloud of hers to catch any last mistakes before submitting. Then, just because it’s _so damn good_ , they call May into the room and have her read it again. Her prompt was which dead or living person she would want to have dinner with, and she somehow painted both a hilariously charming and moving word-picture of plotting the toxic patriarchy’s downfall with the help of Alice Roosevelt. May claps and kisses MJ’s forehead in congratulations, and, with a shiver of anticipation through the room, MJ presses the ‘Submit’ button on her completed Harvard application. Hugs aplenty are passed around before moving on to Ned’s last revision.

They end up debating the merits of double-spacing _again_ (“What if the committee thinks you’re trying to cheat the length requirement?” MJ asks exasperatedly, which only makes him more stalwart), which starts with fighting and snarking and gradually, almost inevitably, turns into one of them (usually Ned) screaming “THAT’S MY OPINIOOONNNN” at each other because they have very strong feelings about grammar and punctuation, which devolves even further into taking a break to look up vine compilations online.

All in all, they lose an impressive hour and 45 minutes. Usually they lose closer to an hour, but the smell of freedom is in the air and the troops are getting restless. Ned and MJ are particularly itching to rip the Band-Aid off; Peter wonders why he doesn’t feel the same sense of urgency.

Maybe it’s because he already has a greater purpose in life as Spider-Man, he muses while doodling on the margins of his revision notes. Half his mind is on Ned spinning like a top on his desk chair, half on the relieved yet anxious flush to MJ’s cheeks, half on the city outside his window, his brain crammed and overflowing with too much, not enough. What’s he going to do when he leaves for college? What’s _Queens_ going to do without Spider-Man? What’s May going to do without him? That feels a lot more pressing than the actual process of applying to leave.

But he can’t put his civilian life on the back burner like he tried to do in sophomore year. Balance is everything, especially if he doesn’t want to lose Ned and MJ.

“...one last read?” Ned suggests, and they repeat the same procedure as with MJ’s essay. Ned and Peter have the same essay topic since they're applying to the same school, but he chose the much safer and more touching topic of his actual dad as his hero. Ned’s a cheerful guy most of the time, so it’s kind of especially heart-wrenching for him to describe in poetic detail how much he misses his dad on long deployments, and how he had to start seeing a therapist when he was nine because one of his dad’s friends was killed in action, and it made him realize that at any moment his own dad could die, too, and how much more precious every moment they had together was after that point. By the time Ned finished reading MJ is staring determinedly at the ceiling and Peter’s eyes are burning.

He wonders for the thousandth time if he should have chosen his real dad as his hero, but the sad truth is that he didn’t get to know his dad well enough to admire him as much as he admires Uncle Ben or Mister Stark. Guilt makes itself at home in the pit of his stomach. Maybe he should be more sad to be an orphan. He likes the life he has now. He can’t imagine being happier in Silicon Valley than he is in Queens.

A hand raking gently through his hair snaps him out of space, landing on earth with a pleasant bump as he looks up into MJ’s eyes.

“Ned’s in the bathroom,” she says, and kisses him with so much feeling he ends up flat on the bed by the time she pulls back. Her hair dangles down to tickle his face, but he makes no move to fix that, because he loves her hair and he loves her face and he loves, he loves, he loves.

“You’re about a thousand miles away today, loser,” she hums through puffy lips, now fully laying on top of him like a blanket with bones. “You need more sleep. Do you want to do your last draft tomorrow?”

“No, no, let’s push through,” Peter responds immediately even while rubbing his eyes. When did it get dark out? Oh, right, it’s November, so probably around three this afternoon. Cold winter gusts push at the window, though, and there’s a sense of lateness in its urgency. Time running out. He smooths a hand up MJ’s back to rest on her ribs. “...why’s Ned taking so long in the bathroom?”

“Because I told him to,” MJ replies as she rises up onto her elbows to kiss him again, because she is a very smart girlfriend.

He loves, he loves, he loves.

“I’m glad we’ll be close enough to still see each other,” he says some indeterminate amount of time later. They’re barely touching, lain out side-by-side on his comforter like a couple of fish in the market, fingers and knees brushing, looking up at the underside of the top bunk. He turns his head and wishes she would look at him and see the unseen question in his eyes. _Will we still be together in Massachusetts? Will you outgrow me, like everyone will someday? Will we run out of things in common once you start conquering the world?_

But she just looks up at the top bunk, one hand resting on her stomach. “Yeah,” she says, not quite an agreement so much as an acknowledgement.

“Hey,” he says, tugging on the pinky finger of her other hand. “Now who’s a thousand miles away?”

Her eyes twitch in his direction. “More like eight thousand,” she mutters, but her pinky twitches in his hand. The corner of her mouth curls upward. “I dunno. Just thinking about how I can’t go back and fix my essay anymore. And that we could end up in different colleges, hundreds of miles apart. All of us.”

“We’re not going to.”

“But we _could_ ,” MJ insists, finally turning her head to look at him in the half-dark under the bunk. “We all applied to safety schools in New York and out of state. I applied to Stanford, Peter. In _California_.”

He sits up on one elbow to better face her. “I know where Stanford is,” he says. His heart is beating a little faster as he tries to process any possibility other than the three of them going to college in Boston together. Even if they aren’t the same college, the same city is all he ever thought and hoped would happen. And yeah, sure, she’s technically right, but seriously? “...do you _want_ to go to California?”

She’s allowed to want to go to California. Peter would never ask her to sacrifice a single thing for him. He just...thought she wanted Boston. But minds change, goals change, sure, yeah, totally. It’s just an outlook adjustment he didn’t know he might have to make.

But he’s drawn back into the moment by a squeeze to his fingers. “I didn’t say _that_ , weirdo,” MJ points out before sitting up completely. They both have to hunch over a little to avoid bumping their heads on the underside of the top bunk. “I only want to go to California if Boston and New York wont have me,” she says patiently. “I’m just _saying_ that we could get the axe from both.”

 _And what happens then?_ he wants to ask, he’s dying to ask, he can’t ask.

“Okay,” he agrees instead. “Let’s let Ned back in and get this done so we all end up in Boston, then.”

As he gets up to open the bedroom door, he jumps in reaction to a slap on his butt. In that split second his spidey senses go completely haywire, nerve endings lighting up from head to toes, and he shrieks. MJ howls with laughter.

Once Ned’s back from his journey to the bathroom, the length of which that would put a Tolkien movie to shame, they waste another half hour (Shuri comes online for a few minutes because she had an idea for a project, and as soon as Ned saw the notification pop up decided they had to send her memes because _Her time zone is so far ahead, we almost never get this opportunity, Peter!)_ before getting back to work. 

Ned scans carefully for any last errors and actually finds an accidental single-return between two paragraphs on the second page, making them look like one enormous monster paragraph. MJ rearranges two sentences near the end, and suddenly, like shifting uncooperative stones on a ley line, the entire paper bursts with smooth, streamlined energy. Reading it out loud is as easy as thinking; Peter feels alive as the words flow over his tongue, and before he finishes he knows it’s finished.

“Beautiful,” May says where she’s hovering in the doorway. For someone who never really cared for Mister Stark, she’s pretty cool about Peter caring for him. “Just beautiful, honey.”

A lump rises in his throat as he submits the paper with his application for consideration, but Ned thumps him on the back with an awed, “We totally _did it,_ dude.”

“We haven’t actually done _anything_ until we’re accepted,” MJ warns, but there’s a wide smile creeping across her face. She meets Peter’s eyes and jumps off the bed to drape herself and a flurry of kisses over him like a warm blanket. Ned throws himself on top of them both, and to a riot of screams Peter’s rolling desk chair topples over onto the floor.

They lay there for a while, both to catch their breaths and because it’s a nice moment. “I love you guys,” Ned says. His head is nestled against Peter’s neck, so Peter pats his hair while tickling MJ’s hip. She’s smushed between them like Oreo filling. This is probably the most perfect moment life can possibly provide. It’s going to work. This time next year, they’ll all be together in Boston.

Then Ned asks: “Is it too late to have more spaghetti?”

A quick celebratory midnight snack later and they finally turn in for the night around one. Ned in the top bunk, Peter and MJ snuggled close in the bottom.

May finally agreed to co-ed sleepovers a few months ago, under the strict conditions that Ned has to be there too (because who wants to get nasty with your bestie in the room?) and that May and Peter had to have a long talk about consent, using protection (Peter hasn’t been able to look at a banana the same way since, thanks for asking), and how to wash his own sheets. Because she knows that sometimes Ned sleeps on the couch anyway, and just pretends he doesn’t set his alarm to sneak back in before she gets up in the morning.

She is, no contest, the best aunt in the world. And he really did learn valuable stain removal skills in the long run.

With MJ’s arms wrapped around his waist, he has to crane his neck to turn back and kiss her chin, because hell yes, he’s totally the little spoon in this silverware drawer. One skinny leg shoved between his, warm arms wrapped around him, and no hair tickling his nose? It’s the best seat in the house.

“Can I tell you something?” MJ whispers in his ear, and he squeezes her arm in the affirmative. “I felt that when you farted earlier.”

He snorts into his pillow. “Thanks. I’m glad you told me.”

“No problem.”

“Can I tell _you_ something?” he asks, feeling brave while she can’t see him. She nods against his back, and he braces himself. “I...I love you, MJ.”

Her hand clenches in his pajama shirt, just for a second, then relaxes. “Lame,” she whispers and kisses the back of his neck.

Breathing a soft laugh, he settles back down to his pillow and doesn’t close his eyes. His heart feels...kind of bad. Not that he would want her to say she loves him if she doesn’t, but he thought she did. Hopes she does.

Wind murmurs softly against the window as he drifts into an uneasy sleep, his dreams tinted red and tasting of ashes.


	2. Chapter 2

_Can I tell you something?_  
  
God. How stupid MJ felt in that one chickenshit cowardly moment, wanting to tell Peter something important, something she’s actually told _other people_ but not him, and instead being an asshole about it. Business as usual. It’s just that the last time she mentioned loving Peter she thought he was dead. Like, _dead_ -dead. _Never-coming-back_ -dead. It’s a lot easier to admit embarrassing feelings when the person directly affected by them isn’t around to hear it.   
  
And it wasn’t easy to tell May that she loves Peter. It hurt like hell. And it keeps on hurting, being able to feel the insecurity rolling off of him in waves, his uncertainty that she really wants to go to Boston for college, that she even really gives a shit about him. And that hurts, too, knowing that she’s shown him a million different ways how she feels but he can’t see that.  
  
For a lover of words, she’s really shit with using them.  
  
So, yeah, she calls him lame for saying what she’s too scared to, and hopes he hears the meaning behind it. He probably doesn’t, but the moment passes before she can give it another shot.  
  
Stupid.  
  
She doesn’t really sleep soundly anymore, since the reality convergence. Every night she wakes at the same time, even just for a few seconds, and she knows it has to be the exact moment Thanos snapped his fingers and turned her family to dust. If she slept through it the first time, her mind won’t allow her to ever again. This is her punishment for not being awake to say goodbye.  
  
Even though her parents and little sister are back, they aren’t the same. Mom and Dad are a lot worse off, obviously, but they decided to go the proactive route and get Tabby in with a toddler mental health specialist right away and she’s doing great. There’s a lot of hope that she won’t even remember the event when she grows up.   
  
God, MJ hopes that’s true. Tabby’s too little to suffer like that.  
  
Anyway, so it’s like three in the morning when she jerks awake, as per usual, reaching for her sister and ramming elbows-first into Peter’s back instead. She grabs onto him so he doesn’t go flying out of bed, gasping a wet, “ _Sorry!_ ” when he flails back against her in reflex. “Sorrysorrysorry it’s just me. It’s just me. Sorry.”  
  
Either he’s just freaked out or he can hear the same emotion in her voice, but either way Peter’s reaction is immediate. He rolls over and wraps all his limbs around her in a soft, sleepy, suffocating hug. “S’okay,” he mumbles. “S’okay, Em, I gotcha. I gotcha. Back t’sleep.”  
  
He kind of mindlessly pats her for a few minutes, just stupid enough in his half-sleep to knock her rattled bones back into place before shoving his hands away. He sinks back into sleep as rapidly as he was jerked from it, leaving her alone again with her thoughts and his hair in her mouth. Whoever said sharing a bed is romantic was an idiot. Turning her head to free herself from her Head & Shoulders prison, she stares up at the slightly bowed underside of the upper bunk where Ned is sleeping. She’s safe. Mom and Dad and Tabby are safe. Her heart can stop pounding any second now, thanks.  
  
It’s just that, usually, she’s home to _check_ that they’re safe when this happens. And now she isn’t, so really, anything could have happened.  
  
She _cannot_ call home at the goddamn _witching hour_ just to check that everyone is alive. That would be stupid, and Dad will only put up with it so many times before parental concern ekes into a very gentle but no less real parental irritation.  
  
Either that, or he’s already dead.  
  
Terror and dread twist around her guts, twin snakes, her legs curling up to her chest with the knee-jerk instinct to leap out of bed and run home this very second. Burying her face in the pillow, she claps a hand over her mouth and tries not to shake too hard as the anxiety ramps up, and up, a gasping terror as wide and ominous as if they all really are dead, like the funeral’s in the morning and there’s nothing she can do, nothing to prove, no one to call and reassure her. _Alone, alone, alone!_ screams her heart, though hard evidence to the contrary currently pressed against her back tells her otherwise.  
  
All told, she silently cries into her hand for about five minutes (feels a lot fucking longer, though, thanks) before the adrenaline surge crashes, slumping back toward sleep whether she wants it or not. Still dead to the world, Peter reaches over and gently closes his hand around her shoulder. Then he snores. Gross.

She falls asleep and drools on the pillow, because she’s too congested to breathe through her nose.  
  
In the morning it’s Saturday, which is great, but the boys sweetly turn off her alarm, which is less great. She hates being the last one to wake up in the morning. It’s a weird and unnecessary guilt born from years of her white dad making that typical white dad when the kid finally wakes up joke: _she’s alive!_ Of fucking course she’s alive, you freak.  
  
But there are pancakes, May’s special celebratory chocolate chip banana pancakes, and those make everything better. She leans against Ned’s side while she eats, bumping elbows, and that makes things better too.  
  
Peter is alight with restless energy. He jumps up every few minutes to help May with things that don’t need helping, or reheats the syrup in the microwave every time the little heat indicator on the tub starts going dark, cleans crumbs off the table and pours refills of MJ’s coffee like a server trying for a raise.   
  
“The Avengers are in Singapore,” he finally says when she glares at him long enough to catch his attention. “Captain Marvel says _I’m_ in charge if there are any local emergencies. I guess I’m a little keyed up, whatever, sue me.”  
  
“I _will_ sue you,” MJ replies immediately. “Don’t dare people to sue you, loser, then you just look like you’re admitting guilt, and then when they _do_ sue you, you won’t have a leg to stand on, defensively speaking. See? Sent my Harvard application and I’m already thinking like a lawyer.” Does she even still want to _be_ a lawyer? It is the most common job for US Presidents, so it seems like the best route to take, and she’s good at thinking like a lawyer, obviously, but also...yeesh.  
  
He grins and refills May’s orange juice. “Go ahead, I’ll meet you with gloves on.”  
  
Dork!  
  
The panic she felt last night is softened by distance now, as it is every morning. She doesn’t feel the pressing, life-threatening need to call home and make sure everyone is alive. Daylight makes a fool of her every damn time. Her guts unclench, her gritted jaw relaxes, and she can enjoy her life. At least until tonight when it happens again, anyway.  
  
In anticipation of finishing their essays, Ned brought the LEGO Star Wars video game for them all to unwind with. Since MJ never had video games growing up she doesn’t have quite the inexhaustible supply of enthusiasm for them, and can’t make herself care unless she can win the whole shebang in one sitting, so she only messes around a little bit before throwing her controller at Peter and getting _And Her Soul Out of Nothing_ from its hiding spot on top of the fridge. Dad got it for her as a birthday gift. Pretty good stuff. Even devoting most of her time to her essays, she’s read it three times already.  
  
_I thought: please don’t grow_  
_familiar. I think I said it out loud:_  
_Please don’t let me love you_  
_that horrible way._  
  
Sounds about damn right, she thinks with a glance at Peter from the corner of her eye. She doesn’t know if Dad bought it for her in a weird surge of insight or if he saw a book with a naked girl dramatically flung across the cover and thought, yeah, that seems right, but either way he’s got her down pat.  
  
A LEGO man falls apart into a mess of exploding pieces; Peter and Ned groan in adorable unison.  
  
“The force was clearly not with me on that one,” Ned says sadly as they turn off the console for a snack break; how they’re already hungry again is lost on MJ, who ate her entire weight in pancakes, but she takes advantage of their momentary absence to turn on the news. What? Elections are next week, she’s got every right to be invested now that she’s a legal voter.  
  
President Ellison finally has to step down this year, thank god, he was always a little too much of a nice guy while his VP made the heinous decisions for him. The repub asshole candidate is almost certainly going to win with his bullshit anti-woman platform, hence the plans already in place for a women’s march at every state capitol next week after the close of the race. I mean, he even wants to police the costumes of woman superheroes to make sure they’re modest enough to decently represent the nation. _Ew_. But there's a woman running against him, Maria Cortez, and she could turn righteous feminine anger into real results, too.  
  
The last debate was weeks ago, though, so there’s not much to report other than speculation on voter turnout. Well, she’s done her part on that front. Anyone at Midtown High over the age of eighteen has been her captive audience all month.  
  
The screen cuts out suddenly, and against her better judgment MJ feels the hairs on the back of her neck rising. Good instinct, because when the camera cuts back in it’s not in the studio but a field reporter on the street gesturing toward a smoking building. It looks like a phone recording rather than a professional setup, a coincidence of placement. _Coming to you live from the scene of a devastating attack on the Oscorp headquarters. Just moments ago an unknown individual with robotic appendages is attempting to infiltrate, and with the Avengers on assignment in—_  
  
“Peter!” MJ yells into the kitchen, trying to sound chill even though her pulse is pounding in her throat. “Duty calls.”  
  
" _Shit!_ " Peter yells from the kitchen, hastily followed by an apology to May—even though she left for work half an hour ago—as he skids across the apartment in his socks to get to his suit in the bedroom. "Where?!"  
  
"OsCorp," she replies in her normal inside voice, because she knows Peter can hear her with his freaky little ears. She turns up the TV volume so he can pick up any other details going on in the news coverage.   
  
Ned runs into the living room and starts hastily assembling his laptop into his usual command center, even though he'll inevitably have to haul the entire apparatus to Peter's room anyway. Hoping this won't take all day but knowing it probably will, MJ pulls out her own laptop to help too.  
  
"What do we know?" Ned asks feverishly.  
  
MJ points at the TV, because _duh_. "Tech thief with robot tentacles. Wake up."  
  
Rushing back into the living room now fully suited, sans mask, Peter takes a cursory glance at the TV screen before kissing MJ square between the eyebrows. She goes cross-eyed trying to keep him in her sight. "Wish me luck?" he asks breathlessly, looking a little needy and forlorn for no reason she can pinpoint except that stupid non-exchange of confessions of love the night before.  
  
"Please," she sighs with a skyward roll of her eyes, "you think I'm gonna give you a token to take into battle? Get out of here, weirdo."  
  
He grins, satisfied, and slaps Ned on the back before dive-bombing out the kitchen window. The apartment plunges into a layer of silence sitting just below the TV's benign drone.  
  
"Wouldn't it be funny if he'd forgotten to put on his web shooters?" Ned asks after a pause, and MJ snorts. It's only funny because Peter would just bounce off the pavement, unhurt, and keep going without his webs like the noble loser he is deep down in his heart.  
  
Spider-Man is on the scene within minutes; it's easy to get places quickly when you don't have to worry about traffic. The news has moved on to other reports in between moments of high action, but MJ keeps her eye on social media while Ned tries to find anything about tentacle man that can inform how to best fight him. The tentacles look like they're composed of something stronger than standard metals, but it can't possibly be vibranium or Wakanda would be all over their asses about regulatory violations. You need, like, _permits_ and shit to get your hands on even a scrap of vibranium these days.  
  
Maybe adamantium, though. It’s rare, but less so. She tells Ned to look into recent thefts or mine breaches while scrolling twitter. Most of the posts are useless, just "omg what the heck" or hastily constructed memes, but someone is streaming live video so she opens that up in another window while trying to find clear shots of the guy's face she can reverse image search. If he’s been in the news or arrested for villainy in the past, she wants to know about it.  
  
Then the worst possible thing happens: Peter shoots what should be a nigh-indestructible web at Robot Arms, and one of the aforementioned robot arms slices through it like a hot knife through butter, a claw on its tip grabbing Peter around the waist and slamming him so hard into the building he leaves a hole behind.   
  
MJ gasps; she can’t help it, and knows Ned can’t help cringing either. Peter’s made of tough stuff, but he isn’t impervious to pain, and that had to _hurt_ , but he springs almost instantly back into action. Her stomach twists into knots. Okay, lame, she is not going to be a superhero girlfriend cliche right now and start wringing her hands or fretting, she’s going to get to work. There, a clear picture that a quick reverse Google—which should really be the name of a sex move, if it isn’t already—no results. Shit, seriously? Everyone has a Facebook or, at the very least, a LinkedIn.   
  
A police helicopter and Peter team up to try and distract Robot Arms long enough to be knocked askew, but the tentacles act like they have a mind of their own; even when his back is turned they’re reaching to jab holes in the helicopter’s side as easily as poking holes in wet tissue paper.  
  
“He can’t do anything,” Ned despairs quietly, but it makes a wave of nausea rise in MJ’s gut. “The Avengers are so far away.”  
  
Peter on a gurney with a charred hole burned into his guts is forever imprinted on the backs of her eyelids. Old news. Only now it’s starting to look more like Peter on a gurney with a tentacle hole gouged through his torso; her vivid imagination is not helping.  
  
Practically throwing her laptop at the coffee table instead of setting it down, she gets up and stomps down the hall to pace circles around Peter’s room without Ned’s eyes on her. He needs help, but even with super speed the Avengers couldn’t be here for hours, and anything could happen in that time. There are other supers, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage and Daredevil, but actually reaching them is about as easy as texting Bigfoot. The options are getting narrower and narrower by the second, and in her frustration MJ kicks a stray pillow on the floor. It bounces off the jiggly handle of Peter’s closet door, which unlatches and gently sways open.  
  
She lets out an irritated _psh!_ noise through her teeth and moves to close the door, but stops short at the gash of black material hanging between his brightly colored science pun tees. God, that stealth suit is creepy, but...it’s a suit, probably jam-packed with Stark Tech that could make even a normie like herself operate at superhuman performance.  
  
It grins, mocking her while she wastes seconds on hesitating, one hand outstretched toward it but stuck just short of actually touching the material. Peter hadn’t touched it either, she remembers, his hand careful to make contact only with the hanger. Dread forms a lump in her throat.  
  
_You couldn’t tell him you love him_ , a voice that doesn’t sound like her own whispers in the back of her mind, _if he dies today, you have to live with that. Or you can save his life and show him._  
  
Sucking in a breath, MJ gets over herself and yanks the suit from the closet and starts pulling it on over her clothes. It’s, like, automated or something, though, because as soon as she shoves one leg in—holding back a repulsed shudder at the not-exactly-solid, not-exactly-fluid texture of the material—it starts to slide smoothly up her legs to engulf her body, squeezing like a cold hand over every inch; she starts shivering before it reaches her shoulders. This feels wrong, like it’s _eating_ her, like once it covers her face she won’t be able to breathe through it.  
  
It stops just short of her chin, as if it can sense her trepidation. She realizes she’s breathing like a spent race horse, chest heaving. This is a bad idea, she doesn’t know what she’s doing, she’s just going to make things worse, opens her mouth to call Ned and ask him to help her get the suit off...  
  
_Don’t_ , the voice in her head says again, and this time she knows it isn’t her voice, her thoughts, her mind. _You want to help the spider-boy. So do I. I will give you the strength to stop that bionic has-been, if you only consent to a...partnership. A symbiosis, if you will._ The suit shivers like an animal’s hide trying to shake off fleas, flexing and squeezing her and sending warning tingles up her spine.  
  
“What the fuck kind of psychic AI are you?” she asks, embarrassed by the tremor in her voice. The suit feels tight around her neck; she keeps craning her head back like she’s trying to keep her head out of deep water, limbs frozen at her sides. She can’t move.  
  
_The superior kind. Do you consent or not?_  
  
The suit starts sliding back down her neck, away from her face, just as Ned let’s out a strangled cry of alarm in the other room. Peter.  
  
“Yes, okay, _yes_ , I consent!” she says, because if she doesn’t then everything that comes next is basically her fault. “Ned, I-!”  
  
_Excellent_.  
  
Before she can make another sound, the mask crawls back up her neck to engulf her face.

For one terrifying moment all she can do is try to scream, but no sound comes out. It’s not any kind of material she’s felt before, neither liquid nor solid, dense and viscous, blocking her throat, her nose, her ears and eyes, like she’s being swallowed. Panic sets in; MJ tries to thrash and free herself, but the suit’s grip is too strong. It pins her arms to her sides, forces her legs ramrod straight, _Fight it all you want but you agreed to this, little girl,_ oh god oh god oh god it’s killing her, she’s going to drown in this thing, it’s defective, she can’t breathe!  
  
Then her airways open, just short of the point of pain. Her ears come unblocked, and her vision clears, or, no, it _crystallizes_. MJ can count every speck of dust on Peter’s nasty ceiling fan. She can hear a bird rustling around in a tree four blocks away. Again, her chest heaves as she fights to catch her breath and adjust. She feels queasy.  
  
The suit is still uncomfortably tight, like the feeling of wrapping your finger in silly putty, but not constricting her movements anymore; she takes a tentative step, and breathes a sigh of relief.  
  
_Not so bad, now, was it?_ the suit AI asks. _We’d better get going if we want to save him._  
  
Right. The objective of the day is still helping Peter not get killed by a technofreak with a bowl cut. Breathe through the weirdness and get going. She knows Peter keeps some spare web shooters around here somewhere...  
  
_Don’t need those where we’re going_ , the suit says just as the bedroom door opens behind her. Ned lets out a blood-curdling scream, the kind of scream you scream when you see someone violently die, and suddenly MJ has no control over her limbs again, but in a totally different and worse way than before. The suit shifts and _shoves_ and her legs are moving even as she tries to stay and explain to Ned that it’s okay, she’s going to save Peter, but her jaw is locked again and she’s jumping through the window instead of opening it like a rational young superhero.  
  
_What the fuck have I done,_ she thinks, and the AI laughs.   
  
Clinging to the side of the apartment building, her head is turned and twisted until she hears the noise of the fight; the suit loosens and she has control of her limbs and mouth again, tightening her grip even though she’s firmly stuck in place on the brick wall.   
  
“So, you have autopilot,” she says shakily, trying to make sense of this suit with the precious seconds she has before jumping headfirst into a fight. “Alright. Okay. I can see how that might be useful, just... _warn me_ next time you’re going to use it. That’s seriously unsettling.” As if in response to her words the suit relaxes further, gives her more control, but she’s left again with the sensation of condescending laughter in the back of her head. Asshole.  
  
_Do it, then_ , the AI says. _Jump. You have the strength now, and the speed, and the hunger._  
  
Shoving aside the seriously creepy vibes this thing is giving off as best she can, MJ does as it says and aims a jump for the next building over. Her mind braces for a long drop, the splat on the pavement a punctuation mark at the end of a short, stupid life.  
  
It’s as easy as hopping over a puddle, breaching the divide between the two buildings. It’s instinctual (or helped along by the suit) to reach out and get a handhold on the wall before landing, scrambling up to the top, and she can’t help thinking, damn, this is pretty cool. She can almost see why Peter is constantly blowing her off in exchange for swinging around Queens.

For a moment she feels a wave of vertigo, clinging to the bricks and letting out a breath of a laugh. Then she gets herself the hell together.  
  
Without awaiting the AI’s instruction—or maybe it’s just being more subtle now—she flings out her hand in the familiar _thwip_ she’s seen Peter use so many time, and sure enough, a black web flings itself toward her next destination.  
  
Okay. Here we go.  
  
It takes a few near-misses, but she gets the hang of webbing and swinging pretty fast; she’s great at physics, after all, and this is just, like, really practical use of her knowledge. Aiming herself toward the smoke billowing from the OsCorp building, MJ flings herself faster and faster, knowing that every second she loses getting tripped up is a second that could be Peter’s last. No time for a learning curve.  
  
_He’s about to make off with our boy’s internal organs_ , the AI warns her. _Take this left. No, the left, the left! Idiot!_  
  
“Okay, _first_ of all, it’s not like I can turn mid-arc,” she snaps, but that’s all she gets. The suit constricts, seizes her limbs in a crushing clench, and the muddy oil floods her mouth and nose again. Limbs moving without her permission, vision fading from oxygen loss, she frantically thinks _You’re killing me! I can’t help him if I’m dead!_  
  
The AI laughs again, a cruel and indifferent sound, using her mouth.  
  
_We’ll take care of him, alright._  
  
Even while swinging onto the scene, shooting black webs at the adversary trying to kill Peter and shoving him away when he comes too close, MJ fights. She gags on the something flooding her lungs, tries to cough it up, but it’s staying put, and she’s not drowning, either.   
  
Everything happens in flashes of dazzling light. From somewhere far outside her body she observes her own arms ripping off the robber’s robotic tentacles one by one as he screams in outrage. A massive hand—her hand? The _suit’s_ hand—holds him around the torso. It feels like pulling petals off a flower, even when her hand is manipulated to keep going _after_ all the tentacles are littered on the street below, claw-like fingers closing around the ball of his shoulder and _pulling_.  
  
There’s something climbing on her back, yanking her arm away, the robber screaming, his shoulder not forcibly removed from its socket only by Peter’s efforts, and even those are futile. Terror like nothing MJ’s ever felt before mounts in her as the veins in the robber’s arm burst and his white coat turns black with blood; her jaw is loosened enough to let her scream with him as he’s thrown to the earth, sans arm.  
  
“ _STOP!_ ” she screams, knowing now that the suit only gave her control of her voice because it likes it. “ _STOP! FUCKING STOP, oh, god!_ ”  
  
It’s not her, but it _feels_ like her when Peter’s picked up next and thrown ten stories to the ground. She doesn’t get to see if he catches himself as she’s carried away by the suit's autopilot, desperately trying to wrench her arms and legs free of its control and coming to the grim conclusion that she has none. It’s in her bones.  
  
The police helicopter doggedly pursues her ten blocks before losing the suit’s evasive maneuvers. Her feet hit the pavement, flat and without finesse, but there’s no painful shock of impact; she may as well have hopped to the street from the curb, instead of the top of a building.   
  
“Why did you _do_ that?” she asks through curiously numb lips; she’s pretty sure she’s going into shock. “He was disarmed. You didn’t have to, to kill him...”  
  
_I didn’t do it. **We** did it._  
  
She wants to throw up. Has to, in fact. Feeling around her neck for a seam and finding nothing, though, MJ is reminded that there _is_ no mask to take off. It’s the whole suit or nothing at all.   
  
“Okay, _off_ now,” she says, trying to sound commanding when she can feel her guts rising into her throat. Her hands scrabble uselessly at her neck, her scalp, growing more desperate to find a seam by the second. “Get _off_ , I’m gonna barf.”  
  
_You will not_ , the AI says sternly, and tightens its grip around her throat until her vision starts to go dark again. MJ can feel her nails digging futilely into the non-fabric of the non-gloves as she tries to claw herself free, but this isn’t material that can be torn by human hands. _There is no off. You consented, remember? We have almost achieved total symbiosis. Just relax and let me do all the work..._  
  
She falls to the ground, choking, hands locked around her own throat, and fades away.  


* * *

  
  
“...young lady?”  
  
MJ opens her eyes to a riot of colors and sensation, has to wrench them closed and breathe slowly to not puke before opening them again. There’s a cop leaning over her, brow furrowed. She doesn’t have to look to know he probably has a hand on his weapon, and so very carefully does _not_ move. Her hands are visibly empty at her sides, but hey, that’s never stopped a cop before.  
  
What happened on the side of the OsCorp building come back to her, and she closes her eyes again. _It wasn’t me_ , she tries to say, but her throat sears painfully at any attempt to speak; she tries to swallow and almost chokes around the swelling.  
  
The sky is darkening. The police officer shines his flashlight in her face, sees the damage to her throat, and instead of shooting helps her to sit up while calling for an ambulance. “10-24,” he says into the radio on his shoulder. “Gonna need a bus. Victim is female, conscious but nonverbal, around five-foot ten, African American. Here, honey, take my jacket, you must be freezing.”  
  
MJ looks down at the arm she’s reaching toward one of the heavy jacket’s sleeves and feels a dull shock when she sees _her_ arm. No suit, and no coat.  
  
_Where?_ she mouths silently, looking around the alley, but there’s no sign. Someone...oh god, someone must have stolen it after she apparently blacked out and managed to get it off. Did they take her picture? Are they going to expose her as some sick arm-ripping maniac? Even worse, now someone else has the suit with that fucking psycho body-snatcher AI program.

Shit. Peter’s going to kill her.  
  
“Whoever attacked you’s long gone,” the officer says, gently preventing her from leaping to her feet. “Ambulance is on its way. You remember anything about the guy?”  
  
She hears the siren approaching, so loud she has to clap both hands over her ears. The cop looks oblivious to the racket. A faint reflection of the red and blue lights off a patch of ice almost blinds her. The cop mutters something about a _concussion_ and leaves her alone. The shakes set in ten minutes later as the ambulance pulls up to the curb.   
  
In the back of her head, she hears a whisper of laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO sorry this took so long! work has been terribly busy but I hope to update more regularly moving forward.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say how extremely sorry I am for my long absence, especially when I was so hopeful to be back when I posted the last chapter. I’m not going to make any promises I can’t keep this time, but I want to thank everyone reading this for your patience and kindness while I’ve been struggling with my mental health and motivation to write. The lead-up to FFH has me really excited and, lord willing and the creek don’t rise, feeling like getting into this story again. I love this fic and I love the characters and, most of all, I love you all. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

“Tell me again,” Peter says.

Ned blows his nose; his face is still red and blotchy from crying even though he stopped a while ago.

“I thought she just needed a minute because she was worried,” Ned says thickly, rubbing the skin under his eyes. “Then I went to check on her, and I heard this, this, like...gurgling noise, and when I opened the door...” He shudders with his whole body, not in the way you shudder to make a point when you see something gross, but the way you shudder when you’re so totally revolted you can’t help it. “I would say she was wearing the suit, but it was more like—like it was _eating_ her. It was huge, its mouth was around her neck, like, like a python eating a boar. The look on her face, she was screaming but not...the thing must have seriously malfunctioned.”

Peter clenches his hands into fists, trying to swallow down the nausea in his guts as he remembers the sight of the robber’s actual human arm being ripped from its socket. Yeah, that definitely sounds like a malfunction of epic proportions. MJ doesn’t exactly strike him as the dismembering sort of vigilante, considering she spent four hours one day last summer laboriously coaxing a small infestation of ladybugs taking over her kitchen into a paper cup so she could release them outside.

That wasn’t her.

“We’ll have to find out where she stashed it,” he concludes, clearing his throat, “and just...destroy it. I don’t know, it’s probably not salvageable.”

Ned nods, obviously trying really hard to look sorrowful for the suit that had so badly scared him. “Sorry, Peter. I know it was kind of special, and all.” He raises his hand like he’s going to put it on Peter’s leg in a bracing pat, but it drops lamely to hang between them.

“I’d rather MJ be okay than the suit,” Peter says, feeling a twist of guilt even as he says it for planning to destroy this thing Mister Stark made him. Maybe it could be fixed, but he can’t risk hurting MJ by the sight of it. This has to have been, like, extremely traumatizing, and he knows he can’t keep a reminder around.

Peter’s phone buzzes in his pocket; he pulls it out so fast that if he didn’t have his sticky fingers he would have flung it across the room. “Aunt May?”

“She’s here,” May whispers on the other end. She’s a hospital administrator, and is probably breaking some kind of privacy law by keeping an eye on emergency admissions, but to hell with it. “So far no one knows she was the one who...it looks like she might have been attacked, but her wallet was still in her pocket; her mom and dad have already been called and are on their way. I’ll let you know when they get here. _Don’t_ show up before they have a chance to call you, please, it’ll look really suspicious even if you are all buddy-buddy with the police now. She’s conscious and should be fine. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

“Thanks May,” he breathes, “thank you. I love you.”

His phone lands on the table with so much force the corner of its case cracks. He puts his head back in his hands and breathes until Ned’s asking, “What? What? Peter, _what?_ ” snaps him out of it and he repeats May’s message. He thought that hearing Ned tell him what happened was the worst it could get, or seeing what the suit made MJ do, but now, knowing that she’s hurt and in the hospital and having to wait...this is the worst part.

To kill the time until MJ’s parents hopefully call, they comb over the news footage of what happened again and again, straining to hear MJ’s terrified scream as the suit tears of the tentacles robber’s arm. He’s been identified as Otto Octavius, a scientist spurned by OsCorp, no surprise there, seems like those are in inexhaustible supply these days. OsCorp is almost constantly in the news for a fresh scandal that Norman’s always buying his way out of. There’s only one angle, the audio badly impeded by the news chopper’s rotors, but the one angle is enough.

Ned goes pale when Octavius’s arm messily separates from his body; even Peter blanches at the spray of blood, and he was there when it happened. It’s so objective, watching from the third-person angle, like seeing a movie of his own life but he can’t stop the stream when it gets too gross. Poor MJ, trapped in that thing as its AI, probably the Instant Kill Mode, went haywire.

Peter’s phone rings again almost a full hour later, long after he and Ned have given up on getting any clues from the footage and instead put the police scanner on as background noise as they stare at the wall, just in case there’s news. MJ’s mom, sounding tired and determinedly calm, reports that MJ was mugged and is in the hospital.

They dutifully spring into action and arrive at the emergency room within another half hour of public transit agony. Everything is easier with his webs, but that’s the last kind of entrance they need to be making now. The police are trying to find Spider-Man to know more about his mysterious and massive associate, so the best option is to stay close to the ground until things blow over. Or he can figure out a strategy for damage control. This can’t interfere with MJ’s chances at Harvard.

Celine Jones must be in the ICU with MJ, because the only figure awaiting their arrival in the waiting area is Robert, MJ’s dad, and he looks...way less than thrilled to see Peter. Probably because he, like everyone else in the world, knows Peter is Spider-Man, and strongly suspects that there’s some link between another Spider-Person’s mysterious appearance five blocks from where MJ was mugged.

Still, he’s not a monster. “She’s stable,” he says as soon as Peter and Ned skid to a halt before him. “She’s conscious and responding as best she—she was. Strangled. Can barely talk, there’s. Inflammation. They almost had t-to intubate.” His fair face and neck are covered with stress hives, and Peter feels an enormous lurch. MJ could have died, and it’s his stupid suit that almost killed her. “Ned, you go on ahead and make sure everyone’s decent. I want to talk to Peter.”

Oh, shit.

“Mister Jones,” he says, trying to get out ahead of this, but his voice immediately fails. There’s nothing he can say to fix this. Nothing.

Robert’s eyes are pink and wet as he shakes his head, silencing him further. “I don’t want to hear it,” he says softly. “I never wanted her mixed up in this, but who am I, right? Just her loser drunk of a dad. I don’t get an opinion. I don’t get to make that choice for her.” His glance skittered across Peter’s face, like he’s reliving all the times he’s come over for dinner and they’ve had a good time, and he wishes he wasn’t. “But you? You have the unique opportunity to make a choice, one for yourself, but really for her, right?”

Heart plummeting to the region of his ankles, it takes a few seconds for Peter to catch his breath. “You think I should break up with her?” he asks, embarrassed by how weak and scared his voice is. “But she...” _loves me._ Does she? She wouldn’t say it last night. Maybe she doesn’t. “But I-I love her, sir.”

“I know,” Robert agrees, and he genuinely looks like this is hurting him to say. “I know it’s hard. That’s why you’d really be doing it for her.” 

It feels like Peter’s entire body, his bloodstream and skin and the fibers of his muscles, have been replaced by bees or ghosts or something completely immaterial. Not because he thinks Robert’s wrong, but because he desperately terribly, wants him to be wrong. Wants to believe that he’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to MJ. Wants to be selfish and stay with her, and damn the consequences. But he wasn’t raised to be selfish.

“I...” he rasps, tongue dry. “I will. _Think_ about it. But I won’t break up with MJ when she’s hurt. That would be—kind of evil.”

Robert nods and, to his credit, drops the subject and shows Peter to MJ’s room. Celine is waiting in the corridor because only one visitor is allowed in at a time in the ICU; she sighs in relief at the sight of Peter coming.

“Do _not_ go in with that look on your face,” she warns Peter while wrapping him up in a warm hug that smells like jasmine and disinfectant foam. “You look like someone died. She’s fine, she’s already trying to talk a little. The bruises even look better than when she was brought in, and I’ve got the best therapist in Queens on call to help with trauma recovery. We’re okay, honey.” She grips him so tight, though, that he can feel her anxiety as acutely as his own.

Sidling into the room, Peter can’t help but see MJ first. The knot loosens in his chest. She’s sitting up, letting Ned hug the stuffing out of her and managing to only look a little exhausted by his constant stream of _oh my god MJ I was freaking out how are you feeling what happened that was crazy you’re so brave_. Then she sees Peter, smacks Ned’s arm to get him to lay off, and as he backs away the livid, purple-black bruises on her neck are revealed.

Peter feels undone, heart racing, the hairs on the backs of his arms and neck rising. Exchanging places with Ned, he waits until he hears all three pairs of footsteps vanish down the corridor before climbing onto the bed, careful of the IV and blood pressure monitor, and wrapping MJ in his arms.

Her breath is hot and damp against his cheek as she lets herself be held, her hand flitting to clutch his shirt, then his shoulder, then his cheek, each touch burning a brand into his skin. He doesn’t know where to touch her, afraid to cause any more hurt. There’s filth under her ragged fingernails, scratches on her collar bone and neck beneath the livid bruising. Taking it all in, cataloging every mark, he swears to himself never again. And maybe that’s what Robert meant.

Then he realizes the puffs of breath against _his cheek are forming whispered words. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Peter_.

“What?” he gasps, pulling back to look at her. He can’t stop his eyes from flying between her eyes and her poor battered throat. “Why would you be sorry? I should be sorry. It was my stupid suit that malfunctioned, I never should have—”

MJ grips his hand to pull his focus away from his dramatic spiral, or at least that’s the look she’s giving him. “I lost it,” she whispers, forcing the air out of her swollen throat. “The suit’s gone. I lost it. I’m sorry.”

Shaking his head, he scoots himself a few inches up the bed so he can kiss her forehead. “I’ll find it,” Peter promises through a fear-hammering heart. “It’s not your fault. I’ll find it.”

She huffs irritably against his neck; Peter isn’t sure if she’s annoyed that she can’t help or because he’s getting all righteous about making things right, but he’s leaning toward the latter. She always laughs at him when he gets all _I gotta do the right thing, only me, I’m the one with superpowers!_ about stuff like this.

“I’m serious, MJ,” he insists with a stupid smile, because the relief of her being alive and as far away from that suit as physically possibly is settling in. “You’re going to stay here and get better, and I’m going to go find the suit. Easy peasy, I’m sure Mister Stark put a tracker in it first thing. I’ll get Karen to look it up.”

In response, she tweaks his nose between her fingers before laying back on the pillows. She looks tired now, one hand tucked under her cheek.

The bruises on her neck are the same size as her hands.

All of a sudden he has to breathe very carefully, mind whirl. “Need anything before I head out?” he asks lightly. She shakes her head, but her stomach growls loudly, breaking the spell of tension winding up his spine as he laughs and kisses her forehead. “I’ll let your mom back in so she can feed you. I’ll see you soon.”

When he looks back from the tiny room’s door it’s to find her eyes tracking him, looking large and dark in her face.

There are two uniformed police officers in the waiting room, talking with MJ’s parents. Peter tries to tune out their conversation to be polite, but can’t help overhearing something something fingernail samples something. He thinks about the filth under MJ’s nails, the gouges in her skin, the bruises the size of her hands. He gestures at Ned to follow him and, dodging the officers before they can notice him, heads toward the administrative offices to find Aunt May. Not that she can do anything about MJ’s condition or the missing suit, but it’s always good to see her when he feels stressed.

As they walk, he apprises Ned of the situation as it stands: malfunctioning murder-suit may have made MJ strangle herself???? and now it’s missing.

“We need to figure out if there’s a tracker,” Ned concludes grimly before Peter can say it. “I’ll get started on my phone. Karen’s totally bros with my GPS widget.”

“I’ll pull an extra patrol tonight,” adds Peter, comforted by the action of making plans. It’s MJ’s habit that rubbed off on him. “If someone’s using the suit, we’ll know in less than an hour. Just...have to hope it can’t do too much damage in less than an hour.” Which. They already know what it did to Robot Octopus Man, and that was barely ten minutes that felt like seconds and years at the same time.

Aunt May hugs him tight and gives him, like, a million kisses for updating her on MJ’s condition, and filling her in on the game plan. “Do you need me to do anything?” she asks, craning Peter’s face between her hands. “Should I try to call the Avengers?”

He takes in a breath and holds it for a second, his heart clenched, wanting to tell her about the conversation with MJ’s dad. If anyone would know the right thing to do, it’s May. But she’s also, like, crazy protective of Peter’s feelings, and if she finds out Robert insinuated that Peter’s too dangerous to date his daughter, words will be said. And she’s friends with Celine. If she decks Robert in the face, it would definitely put a strain on that friendship way worse than if he and MJ were to amicably break up.

“Nope,” he says, squeezing her wrist gently before stepping back. “The Avengers are way too busy, but I got it. Don’t wait up for me tonight, I’ll be out late, but Ned will be in my room working.”

“We’ll save you a plate for when you get home,” May promises, wrapping him up in another hug. That’s the stuff for when he feels like shaking apart at the joints. “Be safe, Peter.”

He tries to smile reassuringly at her as they head toward the exit. “It’s just a suit, May. How much harm can it do if no one’s wearing it?”

Still. He puts a hand flat against his frantic heart as he and Ned gun it back to the subway. It’s just going on four in the afternoon, so of course winter darkness has fallen over the city. It’ll make finding the stealth suit harder, but not impossible as long as Ned gets to work on tracking it down.

His phone starts to ring as they exit the subway station; Sergeant Jeffords from the local police precinct, crap. He forwards the call to voicemail. There’s no time to fill the police in on the fact he has exactly the same idea of what’s going on as they do.

“I’ve got it, Peter,” Ned promises as he moves his laptop from the coffee table to Peter’s room. “Well—Karen and I got it. I’ll let you know as soon as I find the suit.”

“Thanks, Ned,” he says, but hesitates before opening his bedroom window, hand on the latch. He can’t help it. It’s driving him crazy and he can’t keep the worry inside, not with Ned. “...hey, so, do you think MJ and I need to break up?”

Ned just barely manages to catch his laptop before it hits the floor. “What?!” he squeaks. “Are you breaking up? Why? Did I do something?”

Seriously? “ _No_. But Robert said...I mean, he implied, that being around me is, like. Dangerous. And he’s apparently not totally wrong.”

“Except that he is!”

Peter’s eyebrows shoot up. Setting the laptop gently aside, Ned gets up and shakes Peter’s shoulder. “Stop being stupid. You and MJ have that special YA movie kind of love. Don’t throw it in the garbage because of one bad day, you freak. Besides the fact that it’s stupid, you know MJ won’t stand for it.”

He tries to imagine how mad MJ would be, both at him and at her dad, if she found out they were having conversations about the future of their relationship without her, and the thought of her rage actually makes him feel a lot better. And more able to focus on the job he has to do.

“Okay, cool, thanks,” he sighs, and climbs out the window to get to work.

It makes sense to start as close to OsCorp as possible and circuit outward, so that’s the first place he swings. Maybe she took it off and just, like, dropped it or something. And it’s lying in a gutter. God, that would be so _awesome_ , so much less work. Maybe what they say about Gen Z and instant gratification are right after all.

The OsCorp headquarters looks like Swiss cheese, dotted with holes from Robot Octopus Dude’s tentacles. He must have been looking for something in particular, checking floors as he went up. Peter makes a mental note to check back on that, just in case. 

“Anything yet, Ned?” he asks while observing the building from the top of its neighbor. The area’s swarming with cleanup, and a few police officers he doesn’t want to piss off.

There’s a tiny blip inside his mask as Ned turns on his mic. “Well, Karen had a scan of the suit, but that was before she got that virus in October, remember? The reformat must have messed up some data. Instant Kill Mode is active again too, weirdly, so watch out for that. Let me see if there’s anything archived, gimme ten minutes.”

“Roger that.”

After a few more seconds scanning the ground, he decides that no one’s acting suspicious and heads out in the direction the suit took MJ after ripping Robot Octopus Dude’s arm off.

He hadn’t even realized MJ was inside the suit, at first. It has to be an intimidation setting, because it wasn’t...it didn’t look like her, the way that Peter’s suit fits to his shape. It was massive, over seven feet tall, with these broad shoulders, clawed hands and feet, and the mouth, when it opened, it was like...like a _mouth_. Not a mask.

His phone rings again as he swings toward the river; voicemail again for you, Sergeant Jeffords.

How, how does something like that even contain a small human body? He fumes on it while slowing down the trajectory of his swings. This is about where he lost sight of her. It. So it’s the best place to start looking until Ned finds a better way.

He looks for the suit like he used to look for his glasses, when he used to wear and frequently lose them: overturning garbage cans (and then guiltily putting all the garbage back in), reaching blindly beneath dumpsters and parked cars, and saying “come on, man, where are you?” as if that will make the lost thing materialize if he asks nicely.

Twenty minutes after their last call, he hears the blip of Ned connecting again. “Hey, how’s it going? I’m not having any luck.”

“Peter,” Ned says quietly, and yeah, that catches his attention. Ned never says anything quietly. “I got the scan archives, and...”

He sounds scared, like he thinks he’s not alone. “Ned, what is it?” Peter asks, pressing his palm to his ear to try and catch every one of Ned’s breaths, straining to hear if there really is something in the room with him.

“It’s not a suit.”

What.

Opening and closing his mouth a few times before actually managing to make words, when he does talk Peter’s voice cracks up an octave like it hasn’t since before junior prom. “ _What?_ ”

“The scan,” Ned says, his voice rising as he gets more agitated. “It’s supposed to identify mechanical components and electric signals, right? There are no mechanical components. There _are no_ electric signals. It’s not made of fabric or metal or anything any of Mister Stark’s suits were ever made of, it’s made of...organic materials.”

“What _kind_ of organic materials?!” Peter demands, running down the sidewalk to search the next alley so he doesn’t freak out.

For a few seconds, all he hears is Ned sputtering in frustration and, probably, the same panic that he’s fighting. “Nothing recognized by Karen’s systems. Which is, like. Everything on Earth, besides the deep ocean. It’s not _from earth_ , Peter.”

“It’s...” oh, man, he feels dizzy all of a sudden and has to sit down, landing on his butt in a puddle with a dull thud. “It’s alien. Asgardian? Kree?”

“None of the above.”

Holy shit. Holy _shit_. MJ was possessed or overpowered or something by a piece of alien tech. 

“Some of these shapes in the s—in the thing...they look like they could be organs.”

By an alien.

Peter can hear his own breathing in his ears, loud and fast. His hands are shaking; without thinking, he activates the heater in his suit and the shock of warmth helps bring him back a little. A little.

“Call May,” he says through still-numb lips. “Tell her...we have to tell MJ. She needs to be checked by, like, a SHIELD doctor.”

“Oh, god, do you think it laid eggs in her or something?!” Ned moans, but Peter an hear him fumbling for his phone, too. “What about the Avengers? Maybe Captain Marvel knows what it is.”

Shit. All he wanted was to not let the Western Hemisphere burn down while he was left in charge. But Ned’s right; an alien hostile means Avenger intervention. “I’ll call them, and one of the scientists at the tower to tell them we’re coming. Meet back at the hospital as soon as you can. Oh, ugh, I’m going to have to pull rank, I _hate_ pulling rank.”

“Peter, shush, May’s phone is ringing,” Ned says, and blips off.

He seriously feels sick, standing up and brushing slush off his butt. Unable to bring himself to swing right now, he starts walking toward the subway while calling the medical bay in the former Avengers tower first. At least they like him there.

At the end of August, in compliance with the new Sokovia Accords, Peter unmasked himself on live television in front of the world. He’s not the first vigilante to do it, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying, even if it doesn’t lead to a life sentence on the RAFT anymore. And honestly, his life in the day-to-day hasn’t really changed much. Yeah, he gets annoying calls from the police now when he gets in their way or they think he knows something about one of their cases, but otherwise?

Outside of school people barely even recognize him. School got pretty weird for a while, but even they mostly treat him normally now. Kind of broke Flash’s brain, finding out his hero was the kid he had spent the last zillion years making fun of for being a scrawny loser.

Oh, huh. Maybe that’s why he splashed them with his car yesterday.

Anyway, it also means that sometimes, people actually listen to him, now that he’s an officially sanctioned Avenger. Usually strangers. And if he tells someone at the hospital it’s _a matter of national security_ , he might convince them that MJ needs to be somewhere else. To be tested for radiation or blood poisoning or any of the awful things that being in close proximity to an alien species can cause.

The new-SHIELD scientists working in the old Stark tower love him, though. They’re honestly the best. Doctor Simmons tells him, in her chirpiest voice and best attempt not to sound alarmed as possible, to get MJ to Manhattan _as soon as is reasonably possible_. Hopefully May is working on Robert and Celine right now, and can help when Peter gets to the hospital...

“I’m sorry, you what?” the man behind the admissions desk asks one terrible subway trip across the city later.

“One of your patients, Michelle Jones, was exposed to an alien life form earlier today,” Peter repeats, glad that the mask hides how hard he’s clenching his teeth.

“Like Thor?”

“In the sense that it was _from space_ , yes. But not _like Thor_ , no. She needs to be transferred to Stark Tower clinic for observation, it’s...” he leans forward onto the desk, lowering his voice so only the guy can hear, despising himself: “a matter of national security.”

Eyebrows rising, the man slowly reaches for his desk phone. “What’s the number of this clinic?”

Peter rattles off the number to the tower as fast as he can without the guy behind the desk hating him, then turns around just in time to see Ned rushing through the entry. Her grips Ned’s arm and they walk together toward the ICU.

“Is there any way to track this thing?” he asks desperately, ignoring the stares of everyone he passes in the suit. “Does it have, like, an energy signature? Radio waves?” Anything, please, anything at all.

“Not that Karen could pick up,” Ned replies, his voice low and grave. “Hopefully MJ, like, bit it or something and got some DNA between her teeth.”

Without his meaning to, his legs suddenly stop walking forward, spidey sense screaming a mindless _!!!_ in the back of his head. “Her fingernails had a bunch of gunk under them,” Peter explains. “I heard the police saying they wanted to take samples. Maybe she scratched it!”

Ned makes a noise that somehow both encapsulates his disgust and excitement at the prospect of a lead at the same time.

They walk faster, but the closer they get the MJ’s room the more Peter’s spidey sense amps up. The sense of _Danger, danger, danger!_ twists and crawls up his spine, making him feel shaky and sick as he ignores it, but when they turn the last corner into the little ICU room there’s nothing there. Just MJ.

For probably the first time ever, the sight of her face doesn’t make him feel any better. 

“What’re you guys doing here?” she asks guilelessly, arms loosely wrapped around her stomach. Her voice sounds...completely normal. Not even a little bit hoarse, when two hours ago she could barely speak. Peter looks at her neck: the bruises are yellow, almost healed. “Peter, why are you in the suit?”

Something must show in Ned’s face, in Peter’s posture, their tense fear, because she sits up straighter and pushes the blankets off her legs.

“I’ll get dressed,” she says, sounding resigned to whatever comes next.

Peter and Ned tactfully turn their backs to let her get dressed. He can’t not focus on the sounds of her snow-damp clothes rustling together as she pulls them on; they must be uncomfortable but she doesn’t say anything. His heart is in his throat even as it continues its steady scream of _danger! danger! danger!_ , yearning to turn and reach out to her, those homely sounds that should be comforting, the shush of her hair as she ties it back, the smooth soles of her feet as they pad on the floor toward her shoes. He wants, ferociously and painfully, for everything to be alright.

Then the window shatters, and without realizing he’s doing it Peter spins and shoots a web at MJ’s back. She’s halfway out the window, cold wind whipping at her hair through the glass she broke with her bleeding elbow. 

Eyes wide with panic, she scrabbles at the window frame, shards of glass tearing at her palms, as Peter frantically tries tor get her back into the room and restrained. “Get a nurse!” he yells over his shoulder at Ned, shooting another web at MJ as he realizes two things at lightning speed: she just broke bulletproof glass with her elbow, and her blood speckling across the floor and walls as she struggles and screams is black and thick as tar.

She is sick. She is really, really sick, and it’s all his fault.


End file.
